Our third research project of the year is looking at basic field service standards. Kris Oldland, Editor of Field Service News explains why this is our focus. To enter the survey and enter the prize draw to win one of three £50 Amazon vouchers click here.

If you were to strip field service management down to it’s very most basic components the aims are essentially as simple as get the field service engineer to the right address at the time you’ve committed to, ensure that that field service engineer is the right man (or woman) for the job, and then make sure they have the tools to complete the job and the necessary administration as quickly as possible.

It’s as simple as that right?

As we all know whilst these may be the basic aims of service companies across the globe, the reality is that even achieving these simple tasks can prove challenging. Even if you think you have everything in hand, the odds are that someone somewhere is doing it more efficiently, with lower overheads and much greater productivity margins.

One of the great things about field service is that fundamentally people sit at the heart of our industry on both the customer and business side. Companies live and die by the quality of the service they deliver and there is no greater opportunity to entrench the customer relationship than through face-to-face interaction.

This gives field service companies a huge opportunity when it comes to cementing relationships, establishing on-going business and even seeking out new sales opportunities within an organisation.

If your service standards fall below the expected norms your disgruntled customers can see how your competitors compare just as quickly as they can warn any prospective customers of then bad experience they’ve just had with you.

Getting it wrong today can be an incredibly costly mistake.

However, if we return to the three aims mentioned at the beginning, these core tenets of basic service standards, then there really is very little excuse in 2014 for not getting them right.

Field Service Management Software has become an increasingly competitive niche, which has resulted in constant product improvements against a backdrop of competitive pricing. Especially since the emergence of SaaS systems with easily managed monthly subscription models, highly sophisticated software solutions that can incorporate scheduling, job management, mobile apps and much more and now readily available even to the smallest of companies.

So surely most companies are getting these basics right?

We wanted to a put a definite answer on this and so we have put together a brief survey to find out what tools companies are using to get their engineers to the right jobs on time, what are the common challenges and how useful do the engineers themselves find the tools they are provided with as well.

The survey itself will take you less than two minutes to complete and is open to all field service professionals.

Everybody that responds will also receive a copy of an exclusive white paper  based on the survey results as well as being entered into a prize draw to win one of three £50 Amazon vouchers provided kindly by TomTom Telematics, our sponsor on this research project

Not bad for two minutes of your time eh?

Enter the survey now by clicking this link